[282] Mercurius, it is generally affirmed, is the arcanum,1 the prima materia,2 the “father of all metals,”3 the primeval chaos, the earth of paradise, the “material upon which nature worked a little, but nevertheless left imperfect.”4 He is also the ultima materia, the goal of his own transformation, the stone,5 the tincture, the philosophic gold, the carbuncle, the philosophic man, the second Adam, the analogue of Christ, the king, the light of lights, the deus terrestris, indeed the divinity itself or its perfect counterpart. Since I have already discussed the synonyms and meanings of the stone elsewhere there is no need for me to go into further details now.
[283] Besides being the prima materia of the lowly beginning as well as the lapis as the highest goal, Mercurius is also the process which lies between, and the means by which it is effected. He is the “beginning, middle, and end of the work.”6 Therefore he is called the Mediator,7 Servator, and Salvator. He is a mediator like Hermes. As the medicina catholica and alexipharmakon he is the “preserver [servator] of the world.” He is the “healer [salvator] of all imperfect bodies”8 and the “image of Christ’s incarnation,”9 the unigenitus “consubstantial with the parental hermaphrodite.”10 Altogether, in the macrocosm of nature he occupies the position which Christ holds in the mundus rationalis of divine revelation. But as the saying “My light surpasses all other lights”11 shows, the claim of Mercurius goes even further, which is why the alchemists endowed him with the attributes of the Trinity12 in order to make clear his complete correspondence to God. In Dante, Satan is three-headed and therefore three-in-one. He is the counterpart of God in the sense that he is God’s antithesis. The alchemists did not hold this view of Mercurius; on the contrary, they saw him as a divine emanation harmonious with God’s own being. The stress they laid on his capacity for self-generation, self-transformation, self-reproduction, and self-destruction contradicts the idea that he is a created being. It is therefore only logical when Paracelsus and Dorn state that the prima materia is an “increatum” and a principle coeternal with God. This denial of creatio ex nihilo is supported by the fact that in the beginning God found the Tehom already in existence, that same maternal world of Tiamat whose son we encounter in Mercurius.13